The rapid advancement of the digital era and the penetration of the internet to every aspect of the business world has caused the term “Digital Marketing” to be thrown into the spotlight, with the traditional market & way of selling becoming more and more obsolete each day.
Marketers believe that the trade has evolved more in the last two years that than it ever did in the past five decades. Digital Marketing strategies benefits businesses, in particular, startups, by giving them an edge amongst competition and aiding them in catapulting themselves to a higher level.
Due to the online marketing scene moving in a lighting speed, Digital Marketing Tools, strategies and applications rise and fall every month, what works today might not work tomorrow. Despite this fact, Foundational & Fundamental Disciplines of Digital Marketing have emerged as the basic guidelines of marketing any kind of organization in the digital world.
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These foundational & fundamental disciplines proves itself to be timeless and pertinent despite all of the rapid advancements in this digital era. In this article, we give you a heads up on some of the most favorable Digital Marketing fundamental disciplines such as Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing, Email Marketing and Pay-Per-Click Marketing or Google AdWords.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is one of the more distinctable fundamental marketing strategy as the importance of this strategy has been extensively proclaimed. Social media marketing has been forecasted to grow from about $32 billion in 2017 to $48 billion in 2021. About 90 percent of marketers have sworn to the effectiveness of implementing this strategy on their businesses while 89 percent of marketers have agreed that implementing this strategy has helped them in gaining brand awareness, recognition and exposure for their businesses.
Social media marketing not only boost sales, it also increases traffic and also helps in establishing “thought” leadership, consumer loyalty, search ranking and leads. Considering all the perks and benefits gained by implementing this marketing strategy, it is advisable to choose the right social media channels in regards to the company’s target audiences. Different user bases such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Snapchat, and other channels harbors different types and kinds of consumers. It is vital to understand the characters, personas, patterns and demographics of your audiences and match it with the most suitable social media platforms.
Content Marketing
Content Marketing is one of the most crucial marketing strategies that startups must implement. It is a strategy that involves the creation, publication, and distribution of curated, valuable and suitable content to target audiences. This could be in the form of articles, videos, blogs, podcasts, and various other creative forms of content that is made with the intention of engaging audiences. In 2017, the worldwide content marketing revenue was $32.1 billion with 90 percent of B2C (Business-to-consumers) organizations and 88 percent of B2B (Business-to-Business) marketers committed to content marketing.
This fundamental strategy of Digital Marketing benefits businesses in facilitating long-term relations with audiences by instilling an image of credibility and authority of a company. Not only aiding in the elevation of recognition and brand awareness, the “thought” leadership stimulate critical thinking among audiences, viewers and readers which in turn engages consumers. While it supports a company’s SEO and SMO efforts, Start-ups must also realize that it will take time to reap results from this beneficial strategy. The results will rise slowly and steadily but incur lasting benefits.
Email Marketing
There has been assumptions that marketing through emails is redundant. It is, however, these could not be further than the truth which in fact shows that this fundamental strategy has successfully delivered impeccable returns on investment for marketers. In a recent survey conducted by Demand Metric and the Data and Marketing Association (DMA), it was found that email marketing had an outstanding ROI of 122 percent.
This is in fact, four times higher than the other marketing channels analysed, including direct mail, paid search and social media. Email marketing is a fundamental strategy that has been undeservingly underrated. It is vital that emails contains engaging subject lines, persuasive language while avoiding jargon, bullets, and optimising emails for mobile devices. Businesses and Brands that implements the true potential of email marketing will eventually reap dividends.
Pay-per-click Marketing / Google AdWords
Pay-per-click (PPC) Marketing or Google AdWords is one of the fundamental strategies that involves the use of search engine advertising with the intention of attracting visitors to the company website. This marketing strategy helps to generate sales-ready leads. There are a number practical advantages that PPC Marketing offers.
For example, it helps in bringing in consumers at the right time with the use of suitable AdWords incurring high ROIs as the expenditure is on a per-click basis. In turn, there is clarity and transparency on the marketing cost while there is minimal anticipation for results. Analytical tools can also be used to acquire crucial data and insights that can help strengthen other marketing strategies.
However, PPC may have the tendency to use up and drain budgets fast if more clicks are generated in comparison to low conversions. Hence, it is vital to engineer successful campaigns with the intention of tilting the scales in favor of conversions where the costs of clicks are not wasted.
In the business world today, building a successful startup is rigorous and uphill battle. However, by implementing the right digital marketing strategies on the right time, your business will be able to stand out from the crowd. While some strategies may have greater scope for experimentation, others require minimal room for errors in terms of finance. Do choose to implement digital marketing strategies that corresponds to your business needs.
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